ADENE.
That _if_ I find a British official guilty of unfair behaviour----
VERA.
Foul play!
ADENE.
I shall report the action.
VERA.
Attack the man.
ADENE.
You have heard us both.
VERA.
I want you to make him feel the difficulties.
ADENE.
And I claim that you for one have conquered the very worst difficulties without ever acquiescing in wrong to a native.
CARLYON.
[_Coolly; sitting down in chair by the tea-table._] Both of you wrong, quite wrong. I never knew any real difficulties, and I often wrong people--natives and others. What do you call a wrong?
ADENE.
Roughly, anything you wouldn"t do to an Englishman in England.
CARLYON.
Any objection to murder, for instance?
ADENE.
[_Smiling._] Ah, but seriously, a general att.i.tude----
CARLYON.
I have condoned murders occasionally. On the whole I am not sure we have enough of them. I have often wished to see a man knocked on the head when n.o.body would do it.
[_Turns chair facing_ ADENE.
_Enter_ SERVANT _with tea, and exit again_.
VERA.
[_To_ ADENE, _laughing_.] Prepare to receive shocks!
CARLYON.
Oh, Adene knows of old how unregenerate I am. But I"ve said as much as that to an interviewer!
ADENE.
There are certainly people I should like to see removed----
CARLYON.
Well, I"ll tell you. Once when I was at---- I wish somebody would give me tea! Where"s Elizabeth?
VERA.
[_To_ CARLYON, _taking possession of the tea-table_.] Be patient! [_To_ ADENE.] Now you"ve done us a service. We can never make him talk about himself.
CARLYON.
Well, I won"t say where I was, it might implicate people; but there was a poor fellow, a villager, there, called Natthu, who was in the power of a money-lender. You know the sort of man?
_Enter_ ELIZABETH, R., _with her left hand wrapped, negligently in a handkerchief. She comes first up to the tea-table, and then retires to the back of the room._
ADENE.
The worst in the world! I admit occasional murdering may do them good.
[_Takes tea._
CARLYON.
It wasn"t the money-lender this time! It was a policeman. Natthu had a wife and one daughter about twelve. Well, at last the money-lender was going to carry off his standing corn.
[ELIZABETH _comes forward so as to look at_ ADENE. VERA _beckons her to come and pour out the tea. She declines and retires back again._
ADENE.
Sheer ruin, of course.
CARLYON.
Starvation. Natthu was in despair, when the policeman came round one night and offered to get the money-lender sent to prison if Natthu would let him have his daughter, and he gave her.
ADENE.